Fireflies
by HeavensSetFire
Summary: Erza's best friend and first love is dying. Inspired by Owl City's song Fireflies.


Jellal could feel himself dying. Not that he hadn't been feeling it for the past two years, but it was different this time. He said so to one of his nurses that morning. It was Meredy, a pink headed and rather beautiful young woman.

"Good morning. How did you sleep?" Her voice was much too bright, optimistic, and cheerful for a place like this. And yet she set about doing what was necessary, not expecting a reply or even acknowledgement from him.

"I'm dying." He spoke softly, startling the scrubs-clad young woman out of her daily ministrations about his white and sterile hospital room.

"Jellal, you've known that for a while now." Her voice was soft, and he still refused to meet her gaze, knowing it would be filled with pity. He could hear it in her words, feel it radiating off her body. She sighed and resumed replacing the bags of fluid steadily dripping into his arm.

It was only saline and glucose, any more. A bag of morphine, on the bad days. Jellal had been having bad days for the past two weeks. They had long since stopped treatments, and were now doing only what they could to make him comfortable.

They all knew he would be dead within the week. He'd begun having hallucinations, and the only surprise there was that he'd held out this long at all.

"Do you want me to get Ultear? Or one of the counselors? I know that Ul can be a bit harsh, and I'm sure she'd understand if you'd rather talk to Milliana instead…" Meredy's voice trailed off, knowing that trying to get more words from the frail, blue haired man was pointless. She sighed at him as she resumed working.

And that was the extent of their exchange.

She briefly brushed her hand against his and left the room, glancing back at him as the door swung shut. He could see her shoulders slump as soon as it clicked, could imagine her face falling as she walked away.

Everyone did that, lately. Broke down the moment that they left his personal hell, the bland and cramped room that he could no longer leave.

And that was how he knew she would not fetch his oncologist or any of the hospital's death and grief counselors. Even if she did, they would not come. Jellal would not talk more than truly necessary to anyone except for one person, and his mood of hopeless seemed to rub off on everyone except for her.

But Erza had not visited for months. He knew he should not blame her. After all, who would want to visit your childhood best friend and once lover in a hospital? Who would willingly spend time with the husk of someone dear to you? Who the hell would subject themselves to the horrors of watching a loved one slip further and further away each day?

She had a life. A future and a worthwhile past. He did not. He was just a boy in love with a girl who he could no longer fully remember.

She was in college, being paid for by the military. He was in a hospital's cancer ward with a tumor steadily eating up all he was and could have been.

It was hell for them both, to be reminded of what could have been.

So he resigned himself to another day of watching the flickers of light above his head. Fairies and fireflies flew across his vision, weeping more for Erza and her heartache than for him, he was certain. He did not deserve their sparkling teardrops.

He almost smiled at his thoughts. So, he was going to die not alone, but in the presence of crying insects his mind created as the pressure in his skull grew and his brain died. Would this be his last day? If it was, is this really how he wanted to spend it?

It did not matter. He couldn't clearly remember much of his past anymore, but he knew he had never done anything good, anything meaningful, anything selfless. Jellal Fernandez had accepted long ago that he would die as he had lived.

Meaninglessly and probably causing pain. The only one who had ever cared for him, that he could possibly bring pain to, would most likely not see him again before death took him.

And she would hate herself forever for it. But it was better that than she watched on as he died, helpless to do anything.

Absently tracking a particularly vibrant flash of light with his eyes, he thought it was a shame that Erza's last memories of him would be from back when he had no hair and could keep nothing down from the chemo.

Not that he looked much better now. His hair had grown back, but he refused to eat. Anything that could speed up the process of his death would be welcomed. The fireflies he had begun seeing could not take him away from here, so he might as well hurry things along before the hallucinations got even worse.

Jellal spent three days like that, feeling himself slowly passing into death while watching and listening to the intensifying hallucinations that plagued him day and night. He slept little, and did not notice. He was far too tired to fall asleep anyway.

Besides. Nothing was ever as it seemed to him anymore. It was hard to say if his waking moments were any worse than those he felt asleep, and could rarely tell which was which anymore.

The seams that kept reality, dreams, and the phantom images and sensations all around him separate from each other had burst. He did not react when Meredy came into his room, nor when Ultear stopped by for her weekly visit to view his 'progress'. He just watched the fireflies, dancing and twirling all around him.

Jellal found himself longing for a jar to catch them in, only to remember with a jolt that they were not real. He had lost track of time, did not know if it was moving too slow or too fast. All he knew was that the Earth was turning wrong, or perhaps that was just his head spinning off into space.

Whichever was the case, the fireflies were good enough entertainment for him. He hated the thought of having to tell them goodbye when he finally died. They were the only thing he paid any mind to for a long time.

He only stirred for another human when an incredibly familiar redheaded young woman slipped into his room and sat by his bed. So Meredy had made true on her promise she had made some while ago. Or was it this morning? He did not know, and did not care.

She had sent for Erza many miles away when he was not expected to survive the night.

"Are you real?" He rasped out, voice scratchy from lack of use and throat dry from his refusal of liquids. His head was tilted away from his visitor, but he could feel her warm hand ghosting over his own and had watched her form stride through the door with his peripheral vision.

"Yes." Erza's voice was barely more than a whisper as she grasped Jellal's hand firmly in her own. "Will you please look at me?" He could hear the waver in her voice, could imagine the tears she must be holding back.

Yet when he repositioned himself so she was in his field of vision, she was crying freely. Her mouth was open in a true smile as his eyes met hers. He felt tears of his own welling up.

"Erza," was all he managed before she was clambering half onto his bed and drawing him into a crushing embrace. He could feel her tears soaking the paper thin fabric of his hospital gown from where her face was pressed to his chest.

He tentatively reached his arms around her, careful to not disturb his ever present IV. His muscles groaned in protest at the slight movement, but he held onto Erza as the tears he had not yet shed over his own death began to fall down his face.

Jellal was not sure who was holding up whom, or which one of them was shaking harder. All he was aware of were the flickers of light dancing around him and the woman he was embracing.

He laughed. Laughed for the first time in at least a year, because he could remember. A scene similar to this one. Erza in his arms, the two of them sobbing on each other and a thousand fireflies giving them a thousand hugs.

"Erza," He started out again, his lips still fumbling to make the right noises. "Back then. With Grandpa Rob. It was just like this"

The redhead pulled away from him for a moment, watching his eyes focus on things she could not see. She smiled sadly as her tears continued, and spoke to the man she loved. Spoke to the man she once had a future with.

"It's missing the fireflies, unless you're seeing something that I can't. I had never seen them before. Do you remember how amazed I was?" She began to laugh, as her voice slowly overcame the hiccups and sobs.

Jellal stiffened in her arms. "The fireflies," he whispered to himself. And then his eyes flew to her face, and he smiled.

"They're here for me, at least. I can see them, at least. There's enough here for both of us." He couldn't help the bit of childlike glee that bled into his voice. He was here with his favorite person, and they were surrounded by fireflies!

He'd be damned if his own impending death ruined this moment, even if he couldn't recall what Erza was talking about never having seen them before.

"Meredy called, didn't she? Told you it'd be a miracle if I survived the night. That's why you're here instead of half a thousand miles away at your fancy military college whose name I can't recall."

The red head did not reply immediately.

"Jellal," Erza's head rested on his shoulder, and her breath tickled the side of his neck. "Why didn't you tell me you were this bad? Nothing is so important to me that I can't see my best friend. Not a mission or assignment or plan."

Jellal's eyes were still glued to the fireflies around them, though the smile had fallen from his lips. "I didn't want your last memories of me to be like this." All the earlier joy and warmth had fled from his words.

"I didn't want you to remember me like this. Struggling to recall who I am and was. Knowing that there won't be a who I will be." He leaned forward, hands falling limply to the bed as he let Erza support him.

"I can't remember your favorite colors anymore, but I know that you've seen more than your fair share of hopelessness and watched a lot of people dear to you die. I don't want to be remembered as someone on that list. And I don't want you to remember my last moments as being filled with pain and fear, of you being helpless during that time."

"Mainly, I guess I didn't want you, the one person who will remember me, to remember me as weak. Broken. Defeated."

Jellal's words tapered out into thick silence. They both knew there was little room for argument in what he had said, and so they shared Erza's warmth and strong steadiness. He had been that warmth and silent support for her so many times before. It was the least she could do to be that for him now.

"I love you. Do you remember that much?" The scarlet haired woman was the one to break their comfortable silence after many minutes.

"Of course," Jellal's answer was hardly more than an exhausted exhale of breath.

"Then know this much as well. I refuse to let myself to see you as being weak, broken, or defeated even if you can't remember that my favorite colors are red and violet. I also refuse to let you die in pain, alone and scared, Jellal. You of all people should know that I am not helpless in _any_ situation."

Both of them smiled a bit at that. It was true. Erza was a force of nature, particularly when it came to her closest friends. And who was closer to her than Jellal, a fellow ward of the state and her first friend? The first person she had ever let herself love?

"I'm going to make sure the last moments you'll remember of this world are happy and filled with love. I'm not going to leave you until the very end, Jellal. I'm no stranger to death." Erza was staring at a crack in the wall alongside Jellal's bed. He was still following the fireflies with his eyes, but he nonetheless felt the woman alongside him swallow thickly.

"No. I don't want you to see me. Not then. When I tell you to leave, do it." Erza swung her head to look at him sharply.

"Jellal! I won't let you die al-!" Her words were cut off abruptly by Jellal raising his voice.

"No! I'm not asking you to leave me. Just… don't watch. You don't need me haunting you in that way. Step outside, leave my door open just a crack. But don't leave me alone, Erza."

"I… Okay." Erza sighed heavily, and watched with sad eyes as Jellal's gaze grew unfocused. He was starting to struggle to see even his own hallucinations. Silently, Erza slid off the bed and walked around it to the other side.

Her best friend did not track her movements or move his head, only asked her what she was doing in a quiet voice.

"Don't worry about it, Jellal. I'll lie back down in a minute." Erza scanned the bags on the IV pole until she found the one she was looking for. She fiddled with the controls for a moment, until Jellal's morphine was dripping at a much faster rate. He'd be unconscious in moments, and his breathing would stop shortly afterwards.

Her throat was tight as she maneuvered her way around the cramped hospital room to resume her position next to the blue haired man. She thought she caught a murmured "Thank you" from him but it was too faint to be certain. She almost felt guilty, knowing for a fact that she would not leave when he told her to. If he stayed conscious long enough for that.

But she would remain true to her words. He was not going to die alone, afraid, or in pain. She would tell him all she could of himself, of her, and of them, and when the time came she would sing him into blissful nothingness.

Tears filled her eyes as Erza pulled Jellal to her chest and lay beside him for the final time. His eyes were closed, but she knew he could still hear her by the faint stiffness of his body.

She knew she only had a brief window of time left where he would understood her words. She spoke low and quickly in his ear, squeezing him and trying to convey all her love at once.

She told him how they met and how they fell in love, how he was her first kiss and she his. Tears poured down her face and landed on his, mixing as she recalled to him his great love of her hair, and her own wonderment at fireflies and the look of shock on her face when she said she had never seen them before that night grieving over Grandpa Rob.

She told him of how they caught firefly after firefly, how he had turned something so sad into her most cherished memory. Erza told him over and over that she loved him so much, so very much.

And when he struggled to form words, no doubt telling her it was time to go, she shushed him with a gentle kiss to the lips. She withdrew and could not see for the tears clouding her vision, and she sang.

She would not be able to recall what songs she sang later on, but she sang nonetheless, crying and rocking with the man she held in her arms. She stayed that way for what felt like forever, until an alarm began to ring steadily.

Erza stood and wiped away her tears, to lean down and press one last kiss to Jellal's forehead along with a final, whispered goodbye in his ear.

As she withdrew and began to walk out of his room, she heard a few sets of footsteps rushing towards her. She hardly noticed them, walking tall and proud away from her best friend's place of death.

She made it no more than two strides before she collapsed to the ground and cried, sobs shaking her body as she held her head and tears falling from tightly shut eyes.


End file.
